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Thoughts on the Upcoming BC Election

CTV News: Full B.C. NDP platform includes speculation tax hike, some free transit for seniors

A quick analysis of this announcement doesn't move the needle much in my opinion of Elby.

He's safe and largely ineffectual.

I say ineffectual because his efforts at taking on the rich landlords and speculators that have driven up the costs of housing and renting have largely fallen flat. The prices haven't dropped nearly enough for the average voter to be able to afford anything.

Prices have dropped from the AirBnB regulation and the data is too incomplete when it comes to the Vacancy Tax to draw any conclusion to measure it's impact. But the AirBnB price drop has only made a small dent in the affordability of the average unit price. When the newspapers declare that prices have dropped by 2% overall (around $50) and $150 from the AirBnB regulations, the average renter's just going to be left feeling frustrated because the average rent in Vancouver is still $2,600/month and through the rest of the province it's $2,400, because the average salary in BC (according to ZipRecruiter) is $53,000/year. Which means the average cost of an affordable apartment for the majority of BCer's is about $1,400/month. That's still a massive difference! Even when accounting for the disparity in sources, there still remains a major difference that Elby's policies can't even be stretched to project he's actually done enough for the average renter.

He and the BC NDP needed for the average price for rentals to drop by at least 50% to declare their policies were successful. Being generous, the BC NDP probably got 6% to that target. Not that the BC NDP had any target in mind. They chose the most useless policy they could that would impact only 1% of the foreign ownership market.

Being generous, we'll take the BC NDP at face value that the Vacancy Tax freed up 20,000 homes for rental in Vancouver alone since 2017. Extrapolating from that, we can estimate the tax increasing and widening may free up 70,000 homes by 2030. By 2036 we'll probably need 150 thousand new rental units, so this tax increase may provide that housing.

But as Keynes put it, in 100 years, we'll all be dead.

Elby ran the province as a director does a division. He's a longtime provincial staff, and has been in politics for a decade. However, he was basically acclaimed as party leader by a pliant executive committee and never faced a leadership test nor an election as party leader. He still thinks in terms of policy rather than in strategy. He thinks in terms of safe.

But in politics, much as in hockey, safe is death.

Elby needed immediate impact to follow up on Horgan's tenure as Premier. Horgan saved ICBC and restored BC's education system. Elby needed something as impactful as that, but restrained the government and himself from doing much of anything. They should've come out the gates swinging and landing haymakers on landlords chins. It was an easy target, but they held back and seemingly allowed homelessness to get out of hand.

And people felt the threat of homelessness pulling at them. People feel at risk. They feel insecure. Elby needed to get rents down and get them down fast to at least help people feel they wouldn't be left homeless if they had a bad month or lost their job. 

Granted, I am voting NDP in the election. I don't want the Rustad led BC United Party to win.

But Elby needs to get away from safe. He needs to make hard choices early in his tenure so he can make the easy choices later. 

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